Story and Grief with Author and Grief coach Debbie Heisler

What if 'telling one's STORY' held the key to healing trauma? Our guest, Debbie Heisler, an acclaimed author and grief coach, joins us to share her profound journey from being named USA Today 2023 Woman of the Year for Utah to her impactful roles in grief coaching and co-founding the Blue Butterfly House Supervised Visitation Center. Debbie opens up about her personal encounter with devastating loss and how her work has become a lifeline for others navigating similar paths.

Remember, your story matters. Reach out if you or someone you know is navigating through grief.
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Transcript

The Healing Power of Personal Stories

Dominick 0:45

Hi guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul, where life is story. Thank you so much for joining us today. I want to give everybody a heads up in case, as I've said before, any of our listeners have abandonment issues. I will not be joining Virginia today due to scheduling conflicts, but she's going to man the interview herself. So I have all the faith in the world she will keep up our track record because, you know, we've had no duds. We've been very lucky. All of our episodes have been very inspiring and this promises to be the same. So I'm going to read the guest's bio as usual and then hand the interview off to Virginia. Okay, enjoy, Okay, enjoy.

Dominick 1:37

Debbie Heisler is a dedicated author known for her impactful works, including Faith in the Middle and Whispers of Healing and Hope Grief Journal. Recognized as the USA Today 2023 Woman of the Year for the state of Utah. She's a passionate grief coach who provides support and guidance to those navigating loss. As the regional director for the Grandparents Community Network, Debbie actively advocates for families in need. She is also the co-founder of the Blue Butterfly House Supervised Visitation Center of Southern Utah, a vital resource for families facing challenges. A survivor of domestic violence, Debbie's journey informs her compassionate approach to helping others heal and find hope. Welcome, Debbie Heisler.

Virginia (me) 2:16

So the rote question that we've pretty much been asking everybody in our new season so it kind of sticks to the whole premise of our podcast, which is about story is um, so how would you say story relates to what you do professionally, and then of course, how you encompass that in writing your current book as well so my story was actually the catalyst for what I do now, um as well as the catalyst for writing my book.

Debbie 2:52

I currently do grief coaching and I work with a lot of people in advocacy for grandparents raising grandchildren and that keeps me really busy and my book was intended to share our story so that others could learn from it and hopefully gain some insight to help them with their life struggles.

Virginia (me) 3:37

Yeah, no, that makes sense and you know that's.

Virginia (me) 3:40

That's the big thing I mean.

Virginia (me) 3:42

Usually when you're going through grief and dealing with those kinds of things, you know you do get really reflective of what's going on externally and internally and so you are looking at past events, current events and how that all intertwines within the story of our own fabric, of our lives in very many ways.

Virginia (me) 4:06

I know I had mentioned to you before many ways I know I had mentioned to you before and I know you've read the book the Body Keeps Score by Vander Kloek and how he talks about trauma and it isn't just a memory stored in our mind, how it lives in our bodies and affects how we move through the world. And story is how we process that as well. So I've seen firsthand how stories help us unlock those deep-seated emotions and how it can be very cathartic and transformative and how we externalize the pain that we're feeling and find the words to express it and to a form of release. And working with the people you work with in coaching through those grief situations I'm sure you hear a lot of those kinds of stories and see that happen quite a bit.

Debbie 5:05

Absolutely, absolutely, in fact, I was reflecting on that recently. A lot of people will make a comment that my pain is not the same as your pain. I, we all have to learn how to navigate it, and it's pretty much the same process. No matter how horrific or how little you feel it affected you, it's still pain.

Virginia (me) 5:49

Pain both emotionally and physically yeah, no, I and I understand that. Um, dominic and I, both recently well, not so recently, it's we're both coming he just hit his year anniversary. I'm coming up to my year anniversary for my first parent, but we lost parents in this 2024. Yeah, so you know not an easy thing to do, but I know you lost your son and I obviously live in the area that you know. We both live in the same area out here where that happened and that's one of the reasons why you wrote your book.

Virginia (me) 6:31

So if and I know it's the premise of your book, so if you're okay, I'd love you to kind of walk us through that story and how writing that book helped you in that cathartic way of processing that, that grief, if you could, so our listeners understand kind of what you learned yourself. That has helped you move forward and start the work that you're doing now with other people.

Debbie 7:07

Yeah, with other people. Yeah, um well, my book was actually. A friend of mine said you need to write a book. You need to write a book. It's such a multi-faceted story where, just to to give a quick kind of recap, my son had been going through a custody battle with his ex where it lasted almost two years in and out of court and he ended up getting temporary custody, with the mother having supervised visitation. And then they went to court to finalize primary custody of my granddaughter. She was six years old at the time and the court had ruled that he would be the primary caregiver and he would have primary custody.

Debbie 8:16

And two weeks later, the ex and two of her friends had constructed this plan and carried it out by breaking into our home where my son was by himself and kidnapping him, and they took him, after they assaulted him, to the Arizona mountains where they left him and they didn't come clean. It took almost nine days for us to put the story together, figure out what was going on In the meantime. We searched for his body or him and we ended up finding him about eight weeks later. And we ended up finding him about eight weeks later. It was a story that was supposed to be, I suppose in their minds they just wanted to scare him state lines and that then opened up the justice system to three different agencies that would be investigating this, which was Arizona, utah, and then the feds, and in reality we were going to be faced with nine trials.

Debbie 9:50

Oh wow. And Due to a lot of support from the district attorney and police and everybody, we were able to negotiate and they included us in that Negotiate that to plea deals with each of them, but all in all it took about three years to go through that each of them, but all in all it took about three years to go through that. And during that three years I personally had learned a lot about the justice system, the way it worked, about grief, of course, about helping my granddaughter, a six-year-old with grief, my husband we were all grieving all together and separately at the same time, and somebody suggested to me to write a book and I had no idea that it was going to be so therapeutic to do that. It really did help quite considerably. It was a two-year process, to be honest, of writing the book and editing it with my editor, and each time we did a section it was hard to process but it was very, very helpful for me.

Virginia (me) 11:27

Well, I'm sure, when you talk about process too, because I mean you're having to relive those moments, rethink about and then of course you're you know, subjectively walking through each step of. You know what took place and you know the information that you know about and and gathered as well. So you're dealing with that external and that internal process all at the same time, in a subjective and objective pattern. It probably wasn't very easy.

Virginia (me) 11:55

Yeah, I couldn't imagine trying to to walk through a story on multiple levels plus feeling the grief all at the same time yes, yes, yes, thankful I had a lot of um support in therapy.

Debbie 12:13

I was also seeking therapy with my granddaughter, so it really helped quite considerably, I'd say the most. The most poignant moments in writing this book were the moments where I saw it differently. I don't know how to explain that, except that I had a process of dealing with this during the justice period and that was to keep everything in my mind in order, chronologically, in order, constantly. That was how I was dealing with it. And then, when I sat down to write this book and had to recount, I realized a lot of things about how I got through that.

Virginia (me) 13:18

And it's looking back right, like looking back at the process and going, wow, I really lived that and I don't know how I did it and it's like that reflective moment and that's that's what's so cool about story and and how cathartic it can be, because you can be reflective and see how it played out in those specific moments that for him that it was very cathartic in his writing process to when he was writing, and that there's always an unexamined level of the creative process that results in that catharsis. And he always and he says that Aristotle characterizes catharsis as the resolution of complexities, and he often said that if one does not learn or grow spiritually during the creative process, one may not have fully engaged in it.

Virginia (me) 14:25

And so it sounds like that's what you went through.

Debbie 14:27

Yes, yes, absolutely yeah.

Virginia (me) 14:31

And I think that's great and I mean that's the whole point. It's that self-discovery that you make about yourself and about life and of course, hopefully you're imparting that on the reader and that they're able to walk through that with you and see the world through your eyes.

Debbie 14:49

Yeah.

Virginia (me) 14:50

Yeah absolutely.

Virginia (me) 14:52

That's great. I know narrative therapy is a process that does a similar thing. You know it's not sitting down and writing as an author or a nonfiction writer or a biographer. You know someone who writes biographies. Would do you kind of look at the story of your life and learn to look at the narrative and reframe, reshape it and look at how the connections happen? Um, so, when you're counseling and working with um families are going through grief and it sounds like you're specifically focusing on grandparents that are dealing with grief and I'm assuming it's because the same situation as you are taking in their grandchildren for various reasons. Do you kind of use that same premise or walk me through kind of what the coaching is kind of like so currently?

Debbie 16:06

so I also wrote another book which was a grief journal and it was designed after about three years of writing in my own journal own journal. I just felt compelled to help people walk through the process of grief and I don't know. I just felt very connected to that and so writing the journal helped me because that's how I got through a lot of this Writing in all forms. But writing in my journal was a great place to process and so we really work a lot in my grief groups with the journal and going through the process of you know reflecting our emotions and coping strategies and how to do self-care, how to be mindful, and then you know giving them hope and connecting them in the community, which is a little bit about the advocacy as well helping grandparents but I don't just do grief coaching with grandparents, it's open to anyone in my grief group.

Navigating the Grief Cycle

Virginia (me) 17:35

So no, that's good, Makes sense. You know cause? Obviously you don't want to eliminate cause grief, grief is for everybody.

Virginia (me) 17:45

Um and grief doesn't you know? Obviously, most people experience grief when you do lose a loved one and when someone dies. But you know, grief comes in so many forms. I know, um, in my training in mental health counseling. You see grief when you lose a job and you know being fired. You can have grief happen when you move. I know, I experienced it when I moved from California to Utah because I had to leave. I mean, that's where I was born and raised. I was walking away from lifelong friends, you know, even though I was excited for a new adventure. There talks about the stages of grief and I'm sure you know and you can speak to this even more, but it's not really stages. It's definitely more of a cycle because you don't experience them in a stage of one, two and three.

Debbie 18:55

Right, not linear.

Virginia (me) 18:57

No, definitely not linear. And and nor is it like oh, I'm in shock and then I go to anger, and then I I go to denial or um, I mean depression, and then I go to bargaining. Like you can go from denial to anger, back to shock, and then next thing, you know, it's like you're accepting, but then now you're angry again and then you go back to you know, now you're you know despair make you, you jump around. It's an interesting dynamic how it works.

Debbie 19:26

It's very interesting In fact, when this all first happened and I put my granddaughter in play therapy very young and I would pick her up from her play therapist and she'd say, oh, she went through the process about 20 times like they can, you know they. They go through the cycle of that process over and over and over, and sometimes you get stuck in one or sometimes you just can blast right through every single one of those. It's amazing actually, what our mind will do.

Virginia (me) 20:05

Yeah, and it can come up years later.

Debbie 20:09

And it definitely will wait for you.

Virginia (me) 20:11

Yeah, cause I'm sure you probably have those moments still where you're driving down the street or you're, you know, making breakfast or something, and a wave hits you of one of those cycles.

Debbie 20:23

Absolutely. We all, yeah it's. It's something that we move forward with, not get over.

Virginia (me) 20:33

Right. So I'm curious because I know, for me, in my moments of grief, especially since losing and here we go Well, I'm getting emotional because it's still pretty wrong for me Losing my stepdad and then my mom, literally three months later, when I feel those, when I feel this emotion, when I'm able to talk about those memories, those stories I have of them, it helps put those things aside.

Debbie 21:10

Yeah, yeah, memories, because I really believe how I personally have managed to move forward through my grief is that I feel my son close to me in memory all the time. We've done so much in his honor that we feel like he's there with us all the time. Does that replace him being there? No, but it's. I don't I'm not exactly sure how to put this, but it's like the love that we've had is just, it stays. It stays with us, us in the grief process.

Debbie 22:12

We kind of especially in the very early new stages of grief we can't understand that. We can't, we can't wrap our brains around that. So in our we take the time to walk through all the stages, we focus on them, but we don't give anyone any time limits or any limitations to how they can feel it and how they can share it with others. Our groups are pretty powerful in here and every single person that has we've been doing this for almost a year it's been March every person that's committed the time to being here has really, really started to grow in self-love, if that makes sense. Um, love is going to get us through this right, no matter what. But self-love is so important and it's amazing to watch. I can't explain it any other way other than to share different experiences. Maybe that some of our group has done, but they've done some amazing things. Let's, let's. I don't really know how to explain it further, but their self-love is evident and it's helping them yeah, no, and that makes sense.

Virginia (me) 24:01

Um, I've been, I've currently been reading um different books and right now my professors have been having me focus on because I'm working on my counseling skills some more, and so the professors that I'm working with, they have us focusing on gestalt and client-centered and rational emotive therapy. So those are the three therapy skills that they have us kind of focusing on currently, and all of them talk about, like you know, the past, and I'm just kind of grouping them all together, but all of them talk about, basically, what's in the past is in the past, and that we need to be in the present, and so we need to work ourselves from the past. And, you know, each of them have their own different viewpoints of how that is done, of course, but it's about bringing ourselves into the present.

Virginia (me) 25:06

Um, and however long it takes, you know, the client, so the person to get there, the individual, whatever the reasoning is, be it a belief, ideology, a statement, a rational, you know event or statement of self, there's usually a point B. That is really the core behind the emotion, the basic emotion that they're feeling, the hurt the anger, the want. And you know, grief is usually, you know, part of that.

Virginia (me) 25:56

That's the hurt part of it and the other are always, which, of course, goes into that whole cycle of the grieving cycle.

Virginia (me) 26:04

The other ones are always there, they're always circling around each each other. They're always doing that dance with each other. Um, and so it's that awareness, you know, and understanding that and being present and and being okay with that, um, that's probably the biggest thing I've taken away in in my training and especially um losing my parents and then going in and focusing on my counseling skills currently was, because that was the big thing that professors like you know, are you sure you want to be doing these classes right now because you just lost parents and you're you signed up for this. I know beforehand, but you know, all this just happened. I'm like, no, I I'm committed and this will be good for me and stuff. And they're like okay, and and I've been learning, it's okay to not be okay, like you know, it's okay to be and to let people know that like to be to be authentic, to to be honest, to transparent, and it's so hard to show people that rawness.

Virginia (me) 27:09

because we do, I think. As you know, we want to connect with people but at the same time, we worry how other people are going to see us in the world.

Debbie 27:21

Absolutely. I just put out a little e-book for people that are dealing with new grief, because one of the things that I have learned is that when you are in new grief, you don't know how to express to others what you need. People will always say do you need anything? Or how can I help you anything, or how can I help you or how can I support you, and your answer is usually what? I'm good or it's okay, I'm fine, whatever the case might be, but there are a number of ways that people can support you in grief that don't include making you feel like you should have already moved through grief or making you feel less than, and so my little ebook has a lot of tips of how, if somebody offers support, how you can answer that of tips, of how, if somebody offers support, how you can answer that.

Virginia (me) 28:34

I like that and I kind of wonder with I mean, I think I think even you know going out to the macro level of society. You know the, the hurt, the decisiveness we see when people feel slight, slighted. It. Some of that is grief. I think you know they don't recognize it as that but in truth that's what it is. It's you know they. They want to be connected. You know we all want to experience that human connect. You know connectedness, human experience. But we don't know how to do it. We put those walls up, we don't allow ourselves to support and lean on each other.

Virginia (me) 29:15

Yeah it is the truth, yeah, and it unfortunately does divides us and it doesn't allow us to to move forward and, as Dominic and I always talk about, like that march to the human potential of what we can become absolutely absolutely yeah, um. So to kind of go back to story, um, you talked about how you have the grief journal. So I know, like as a writer, when I, when I sit down to write fiction and I know it's very different from journaling or non-fiction writing a lot of times writers will go like to a coffee shop and you've got the buzz and you have to kind of tune that out and and stuff.

Virginia (me) 30:05

um, so when you're dealing with grief and you're doing a journal, you know obviously you've got that noise in your own head. And what would be some tips to help quiet your mind, to help somebody to journal, to be able to get in touch with that awareness, to be able to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard?

Debbie 30:37

Yeah. So I had to struggle with that a little bit in the very beginning, when my friend suggested that I start journaling because I hadn't really done it as a practice journaling because I hadn't really done it as a practice and she said you have to use pen to paper. And I'm really do support that, because there is something that happens in your mind, between the your mind and your hand, when you're writing, and, um it, it's almost like I've caught myself several times writing in my journal and all of a sudden I'll be like on one thought and the next thing, you know, I'm writing this entirely different thought and it's turned into two or three pages and I'm like, did I just write that? And it's very different pen to paper. That being said, I set aside an hour in the morning before anybody gets up from my home and in a quiet space where I can fully be present with my book, and I start my journal every day with the same quote and it says I am grateful for the love, abundance and joy that finds me today.

Debbie 32:02

I'm open, I receive, and I start my journal every morning that way and that puts me in that mindset. And then, once I start writing, some days I might write a half a page. Some days it just like I said, my hand just goes nuts and I'm doing three, four pages and it's really just something I don't come back and look at. To be honest with you, I will write in my journal and I filled many and I very rarely go back to them because I feel like it's almost like a brain dump where I've written it and if I needed to process it it was three or four pages long and and then I can move on from it. It's pretty interesting.

Virginia (me) 32:57

No, I love it. Do you think you'll ever go back and reread anything that you've ever you know kind of brain dumped onto those pages?

Navigating Personal Loss and Grief

Debbie 33:05

Well, I had to do that a little bit as I was writing my book. It did give me some guidance, so it was essential in getting the facts that I wanted to get into the book correctly. But there are moments where I'll write things in there that I intend to come back to, moments where I'll write things in there that I intend to come back to. But inevitably I'm the type of person that if I wrote it down, it's really ingrained in me and I'm I'm okay to go back if I need to, but I don't often need to okay, that makes sense.

Virginia (me) 33:45

Yeah, um, I I'm. I'm opposite, I'm the type that, well, I, I used to be. I can't say that I guess now, now that I'm older, but when I was younger it was like if I wrote it down, I forgot it. Oh, it was like out of sight, out of mind, so it was like it left my brain. But now I find, if I, now I find, if I write it, it does stick more in my brain now that I'm older. So I guess it's because, you know, the memory receptors are different in my brain.

Debbie 34:12

Right.

Virginia (me) 34:12

So the connections you know, memory. Memory gets different when you get old.

Debbie 34:17

True that yes?

Virginia (me) 34:20

I'm going to switch gears a little bit and go to go to some some things that Dominic had kind of mentioned to me. So, um, going back to kind of the situation that happened with your son in the, in the premise of your book, and and talking about society. So we know that society often sweeps things under the carpet, um, especially when it comes to dysfunction in families and domestic violence issues, especially in the 80s and 90s. We're both Gen X kids, so we grew up with the talk shows like Donahue and Oprah Winfrey, and they did shed a lot of light on those issues. They put them under that microscope.

Virginia (me) 35:08

So in 2024, we started seeing more of that shame and the stigma had been removed from trauma, dysfunction, mental health issues and even neurodivergence, which was a great thing. People started talking about being more mindful. People started talking about being more socially aware, you know whole body wellness, which is a great thing, you know. We started seeing suicide prevention. We started seeing people talking about, you know, trauma and you know the Me Too movement happened, all those kind of things. However, we know that some people say we've gone way too far in our transparency, that we're airing our dirty laundry, that society rewards brokenness. What do you say to that? Considering what you've gone through working with people who've gone through different forms of grief Do you think it's been helpful? Absolutely Okay.

Debbie 36:05

Absolutely. Yeah, I 100% believe in speaking up. My book starts with my a half years of domestic violence and I never spoke up. I never spoke a word about it, actually until I was trying to leave. I remember going through many, many, many episodes where people would just look the other way. I lived in an apartment building where there were other people that could hear everything going on and nobody did a thing. In today's society, where we are bringing it up, we are making people aware. It's more important than ever Because domestic violence has been on the rise. People should be aware, and speaking up is a matter of life and death in some cases. And how can that be wrong?

Virginia (me) 37:37

Right, and I kind of wonder too, if it's the people who maybe are on that side of you know we're airing our dirty laundry is because it's making them uncomfortable, for whatever reason and and it's. Maybe they need to look at that discomfort and why it's uncomfortable to them. Maybe it's because they are in that situation. They're a perpetrator of that situation.

Debbie 38:03

Or they know somebody.

Virginia (me) 38:04

Exactly. And they haven't spoke up exactly and they haven't spoke up. Yeah, no, that's, that's very true. I I totally agree with you and um, but, you know, needed to ask the question because everybody has a different viewpoint and of course, you know that's what we're here to do in this podcast. Is we we? We want people to, we will. Our goal is to understand why we are, that, you know, have the interconnectivity amongst us, because I think we forget sometimes that we have more similarities than differences no matter what our cultural backgrounds are, what our religious backgrounds are, what our ideologies are, that ultimately, deep down, are, you know, basic human needs and feelings are the same.

Debbie 39:04

Absolutely. I wholeheartedly agree with that. I wholeheartedly agree with that yeah.

Virginia (me) 39:11

What are some examples when it comes to mourning and grieving that don't involve death, rather that are other forms of loss? I know I covered a few at the beginning.

Debbie 39:26

but what are other ones that you've encountered? Oh well, personally, as well as in our groups, the loss of, obviously, pets pets is a huge loss to people. They become very emotional, as well as loss of jobs and family members not in the sense that they've passed on, but they've broken ties with family members. And those are some of the instances. One of mine was definitely job loss.

Exploring Grief and Creative Healing

Debbie 40:02

I had I built a career in real estate from 2000 on up to when my son was killed in 2016. And I was a broker for a real estate company and after my son was killed, I went through obviously a lot emotionally and I tried to return to work and I ended up losing my job because I wasn't 100% the person I was before. While that sounds really harsh, I've learned through life that that uncomfortable that we were just talking about people have a difficulty when it comes to dealing with people who are grieving, who are emotional. They don't know how to handle that or process that, and that resulted in me losing my job, a career that I had built, and I've seen that with other people in my groups where not only did they lose a loved one, but life took such a drastic turn, and for what other reason. It could be just fighting about estates or you know, there's so many dynamics to the loss of a person that also compound the grief that it's. It's really hard. So those are just some of the things that I've seen right.

Virginia (me) 41:57

So here's something because you just mentioned. You know, like part of you know the grief process is those who aren't grieving. You know you interact with those people and they don't know how to handle somebody who is yeah um, it seems like there isn't much focus on that. Actually. When you said that, I started realizing wow, you know, I'm just realized there isn't much talk about that.

Debbie 42:30

Yeah.

Virginia (me) 42:30

And I started realizing that's probably because as a society, within our Western culture, we kind of downplay grief, like I don't want to say it's a taboo because it's not, but we don't. I mean there's obviously there's in other cultures. So I have a child who is Filipino and in that culture, I mean, they don't have whalers. I can't remember what the term is because it's been a long time since I've been around my child's father because I'm not with them anymore but similar to whalers, but there's a different term that they use. But it was where they the bodies in the living room, they sleep with the body they have people right right?

Virginia (me) 43:19

um, it's not, it's. It's very common in a lot of the pacific islander culture for that um, each one's different how they handle that, but that part is all pretty similar, um, and so, you know, some it's very much a celebration. Some, you know, I know, at least with this with my ex's filipino family, it was more, a little bit more grieving, with celebration later, um, but it seems like in ours, ours is very much like we all wear black. Yeah, sad, I mean you literally like you know, like the perfect funeral is the skies are gray and it rains yes, yeah, you know that's like it is dreary and you know,

Debbie 44:06

it's like really it's like the gloom and the doom, yeah, matching the mood of the moment exactly, and yeah, I think about that I'm going.

Virginia (me) 44:17

Maybe that's why, societally, people don't know how to handle someone who is going through grief. That isn't a part of that grieving process with that person. They feel uncomfortable in it. Um, can you kind of talk about that a little bit? Um, and what you've experienced, what, what you've learned from that?

Debbie 44:44

also do we all grieve so differently that it's it is such an independent experience and even in my own household, where the three of us were grieving, it was so different and and trying to balance our grief and trying to create a new normal in our life was like a complete act.

Debbie 45:19

You had to figure out what mine field you could walk through with that person and I would think, just knowing the dynamics of families, for instance, like if there's there's an estate that needs to be settled, there's all it always seems like there's family members that are fighting and it always seems like it's over money and things. But in in essence, I believe it's more about the grief. It's more about not handling each other's grief and being um compassionate with one another. Obviously there's the dynamic of you know money and and belongings that are left behind or what to do, and then there's inevitably in every family that one child who was the caretaker or that takes control over a family, and there's always this struggle that happens and I always come back to it's not always about you know. We have to realize we're all grieving and what does that mean for you? What does that look like for you? Does it look like you're lashing out at other people. Possibly Does it look like we're fighting over things? Possibly Different personalities, different grief processes, and we don't talk about that either.

Virginia (me) 47:16

No, we don't, we just fight, yeah, and it seems like we often, you know. So, to kind of come back around a little bit, you know we often explore here on this show, you know, the art of self-regulation. Um, and obviously that has to do with our emotions, which is exactly we're talking about. I mean, grief is as an emotion and and people express emotion very differently.

Virginia (me) 47:45

So how we manage our emotions and our reactions through creative outlets, emotional outlets, all you know become entangled. I know I found that for me, storytelling can be a powerful tool for grounding myself in moments of emotional turmoil. It sounds like, you know, you kind of found that as an outlet for you when you wrote your book. Um, so what are other ways for people to find that sense of calm or that sense of control amidst the chaos of their grief?

Debbie 48:19

Creativity, that's always a big one. We do, um, we do watercolor journaling, um know, just any kind of creative outlet that you can find is always going to help you process in some way it's. You know, if you don't journal, try something painting or coloring books. You know, even like the adult, coloring books or things like that, just using your creative side of your mind is a great way to bring yourself into regulation. Also, you know learning grounding, learning breathing techniques, learning different ways to be aware of your emotions, because a lot of people don't have that awareness at all. And when you're aware, you can do you know.

Debbie 49:18

Creative visualization you can do. Exercise you can do just grounding techniques of any kind. There's just a number of ways that you can bring that around, and that's one of the things that we do here in my grief group is we learn these ways right.

Virginia (me) 49:39

Oh, I want to go back to the watercolor and doing kind of the creative activities where it's art based, because you know that's that whole left, right brain. So your logical, you know, more rational brain versus your more creative, abstract brain. So what is it about using more of the abstract, creative processing that versus using more of that logical, rational side of your brain that helps with grief, like what? What have you learned in in your grief coaching techniques that helps people work through it? Like what is it about that?

Debbie 50:32

well, what we do, we usually do it in a group setting and, um, there is, it's so interesting to see how everyone perceives what subject we are drawing and painting, and then they put their own words to it, and it's just something about taking the time. Um, it regulates your heartbeat, it just keeps you in the moment, where a lot of times we don't stay in the moment, and that's another part of processing emotions, right? So it is just incredibly wonderful to watch them. They each get a grief or a watercolor book and then every time we have another class, they bring the book and and they can go back and see different parts about themselves, because we write journaling in with the watercolor. So they can go back and look at that and it's just a creative process of, I would say, coming into yourself.

Virginia (me) 51:49

Yeah, I love that and I think that's so true. We talked about that earlier today when Dominic was doing another podcast with a guest, cheryl Murphy. He shared with me that they're also talking about that same thing, about you know, it's so important to have that self-awareness and being in the moment and being present, um, because I think that's what we're afraid of is sometimes is is facing what's in front of us right at that time, in that present reality. It's easier to retreat versus to stay present. And yeah, so I just, I just love that and maybe it's just because it's that vulnerability, because vulnerability is a gateway to connection I at least that's how I know I feel sometimes. Do you feel like you know when, when you cause obviously I mean you're putting yourself out there I mean do you feel like that's opening doors for you and unexpected and giving you unexpected opportunities and unexpected conversations that you'd never thought you would see, because you are being vulnerable and basically allowing that to happen?

Debbie 53:12

Oh, yeah, it has been. Um, it has been an interesting adventure I've had to I sit back and I'd be like, wow, I wouldn't have met these people had I not done this. When I opened up the Blue Butterfly House, that was an incredibly cool experience because it brought people through the door that wanted to help that I would have never been in a position to be in the same room with and I would have never known that. The commonality there was that they had experienced something in their life that gave them a passion to be there. I just would never have known that about somebody. And the same goes with my grief groups and you know, I people that have come through my door and I'm like I would have never known that about you. You put on such a beautiful, brave face but here you are being so raw and vulnerable with me and I'm just so grateful that I'm in a position to receive that sit with that and support that it's amazing.

Virginia (me) 54:42

Yeah, and they're trusting you. They're trusting you, yeah. Um, you mentioned the blue butterfly house. I know what that is, but for our listeners, especially the ones that don't live in this area, can you share what that is?

Debbie 54:55

party if their court ordered to have supervised visitation whether it be from substance abuse or they've got domestic violence issues or there's just some issue the court deems them unable to be with their children safely one on one. And it's something that was very close to my heart, um, having to be a supervisor for my son's ex when she was going through, when we were all going through the custody. Um, I was that supervisor and there was nothing available to us here for a third party other than using the child and family services, and if you didn't have a child and family services case, you had nowhere to go. There was like no place that you could go that was safe.

Virginia (me) 56:15

that was safe and it was important for me to create something safe for families after my son's death which, by the way, I thank you for, because I was a victim advocate for a number of years in the area, so I referred families there very often for that reason. So thank you for creating that. You're welcome. I mean, it was obviously under unfortunate circumstances, but it has been a great asset to our community and I hope other communities have done something similar. And if not and you're listening please do, because it's been a valuable asset for our whole county. We're kind of getting to the top of the hour here, so I'm just kind of curious is there anything that you would like to impart to our listeners? Was any additional insights that we haven't covered that you feel are important for them to know about?

Debbie 57:19

understand you know it was. It was actually something that I had learned recently through the holidays that I wanted to just share. That I thought was it just was so eyeopening to me. So I I know that grief is both physical and both emotional and everybody who comes through my door they have all kinds of both issues.

Debbie 57:53

And right before the holidays I hurt my sciatic nerve, I I irritated it, whatever, and I sprained my back and I had such an intense pain in my back and I was just kind of reflecting and every movement that I made had to be calculated.

Debbie 58:22

Every single time I sat down I had to go through the mechanics of sitting every time before I could successfully sit without pain and I thought about that and how that equates to people that are going through emotional and physical pain and how when someone is grieving the loss of a loved one, it is very much the same. The pain is real. It's hard at the beginning and you have to actually sit down and think about the mechanics of life again, the mechanics of life again. You have to walk through the new without the spouse or the child or whomever you lost that you love. It is completely new and you have to break it down into tiny little steps in order to get through it, and that's what we do here, and I just I really wanted to impart that on everybody that, no matter where you are, if you've lost someone or something, that getting help to break it down to tiny little steps is super important to getting through it I love that.

Virginia (me) 59:56

I love that. I wanted to comment on that, but I I don't, because I don't want to take away from it either because, I'm like, oh, I can so relate to that in so many ways, but that was that was just beautiful.

Virginia (me) 1:00:08

You said so. I'm gonna leave it there, hey, but uh, no, debbie, thank you for coming on. I know we've been trying to to get to this, um to having you on to do this episode. I think it's been great. Um, grief is something that a lot of people go through, especially we just had the holidays. People experience this. Um, the holidays are always tough for everybody. Um, so hopefully those who got through them pat yourselves on the back Cause it. It's tough, but you did it. You did it, yes, you did it, and hopefully you know this. This episode has helped you. You were able to get some golden nuggets out of it and you can keep plugging forward. Um. Thank you, debbie, for coming on. It's been a pleasure, um, and I definitely for having me absolutely, and I will keep in touch with you for sure.

Virginia (me) 1:01:03

And um, yeah, thank you so much okay well, you have a beautiful night, you too and for our listeners.

Dominick 1:01:12

Remember life is story and we can get our hands in the clay, individually and collectively. We can write a new story. See you next time.